White House Wants 600,000 News Jobs by the End of Summer

White House officials say they want to save or create 600,000 new jobs by the end of the summer and they are working hard at using federal stimulus money to get that accomplished. Vice President Joe Biden outlined a series of spending projects that are about to kick into high gear. Among them, the Justice Department will put 5,500 new police officers on the streets during the summer, the Interior department has 107 new park projects, and the Department of Transportation will begin work on rehabilitating 98 airports and 1500 highway locations across the country. Summer youth employment will make up 125,000 jobs but since those are part time, only half of the positions will count towards the 600,000 figure.

President Obama commented during a Cabinet meeting about the 345,000 jobs that were lost in May saying "that was far less than was expected, but it's still too many." The President chastised his Cabinet members saying he wasn't satisfied with those numbers and told them to do more. "People lose jobs, they pull back on spending, that means businesses don't have customers, and suddenly you start seeing more job lay-offs. Our whole task here with the Recovery Act is to reverse that negative cycle into a positive cycle, and it's going to take some work."

The White House announced a Web site, www.whitehouse.gov/recovery, that would allow Americans to not only view how the stimulus money is being spent but to tell their own stories on how the projects are affecting them.